I was working at a vineyard when the annual harvest festival occurred.  It was a big deal, lots of music, food and wine.  I was just a poor student so I couldn’t afford to hang out with my wealthy friends drinking and dancing, so I opted to pour wine instead.  It was a great way to spend the day… pretending to be an expert, flirting with the half-cut patrons, and making small talk with the guy who corked the bottles.

It was a long day, but we had breaks.  During the breaks we relaxed in the staff kitchen, kicking back freshly squeezed orange juice that the bosses daughter made in the morning.  It was the first day I ever had a muffin, well, the kind with the flowing caramel in the middle.  It was magnificent.

Anyway, I was relaxing on the couch, eating my muffin, drinking my juice, when the band came in.  I tried to flirt with the drummer, but he was oblivious, so I just talked with the singer.  He was a some-what-well-known singer of my parents generation, but no one I thought was anyone.  We talked about the river nearby, and we talked about the lake.  We talked about sailing.  He had a boat, and I was taking a sailing course at school.  It was an elective course.

Then we were back at work, I was pouring, and he was singing.  The sun beat down, and I was burning.  The middle aged crowd swayed to the beat of the oblivious drummer, some stumbling with their intoxication and impossible heels.  I found myself smiling and laughing, soon singing along with the lyrics of a long supressed melody.

After the festival was over, and most of the wine was drunk, we retired in.  The boss and his daughter lit the barbeque and we relaxed on hay bales, drinking wine he had put aside for the workers.  The band struck up a tune, and impromptu karaoke occurred.  I sang a song about a raspberry beret, though I knew not the original artist.  We laughed.  Later when my turn was to pass again, I sang “You can leave your hat on” figuring that the theme of my song choices would be headresses.  I stumbled back to my hay bale, clutching a winebottle in hand.  As I lay staring up at the stars, desperately trying to think of another song about a hat, without mentioning the Village People.  

The singer from the band came up, flopping into the hay with me.  We laughed, sang and shared a bottle.  That’s when he told me he was spending the week fishing the lake with Joe Cocker.  We laughed.  I slapped his chest accusing him of pulling my leg.  He became more serious and said it was true, and that Joe was planning on making a surprise stop at the festival, but the fish were biting, and everyone makes priorities.

That was the first day I almost met Joe Cocker.  The singer whose name still escapes me invited me back to his bach, to fish with he and Joe.  I declined, preferring to keep the illusion of the famous.  That and it just seemed like a drunken promise that would be forgotten when the sun rose.

When I was back at school I ran into Emily.  She was a major Joe Cocker fan, we both found him cool.  Emily always wore amazing hats, so she loved the song.  I told her how I almost met Joe Cocker.  She laughed, and wanted all the details.  Then she told me about when she met Michael Jackson, backstage at his concert.  Emily had end-stage leukemia, she wore hats because she had no hair, no eyebrows and no eyelashes from the chemo.  Michael Jackson stopped into the hospital when she was getting treatment and gave out backstage passes to all the kids and their parents.  He was such a superstar back then, and never let a fan down.  Emily wasn’t much of a Jackson fan, but she thought he was generous and kind.  She went to the concert, the same night I nearly met Joe Cocker.

We both laughed about Joe and Michael later on, when she was dying.  Not long after she passed, Michael did too.  Both dead.  Well before their time.  But, during the time they were here, plenty of fond memories were had.

I often wonder what would have happened if I did meet Joe Cocker?  Maybe by some cruel twist of fate, we would be the ones who died, and Emily and Michael would have lived.  Whatever the result, one thing remains.  One day I may actually meet Joe Cocker, and I will tell him the story of when he nearly met my friend Emily.

I casually read the menu, or at least, pretended to. I could never fathom how the menus were structured in the Alpha Quadrant, and heavily relied on the waiter offering the ‘Special of the Day’. Admittedly this tactic had not always served me well, but, it did always result in what could loosely be termed a ‘meal’ arriving on the table. My waiter soon returned, gave the speech about the specials, and I settled on the ‘Soup of the Day,’ a charming rural recipe loosely based on a chowder from somewhere near the Dogstar. It sounded edible.

As I was waiting for my ‘meal’ to arrive, I looked around the room. The restaurant was filled with all sorts of people, and species, of all heights, sizes, shapes and smells, all trying to enjoy what would have been Valentines Day back on Earth. I was desperately searching to see if anyone else was dining alone.

Then I saw her. She was sitting over by the window, smoking a long Darthinian cigarette, and causally flicking the ash into her martini glass. I could not believe that here at the edge of the known universe, I was to come in contact with the woman who so harshly raped and murdered her late husband, my former best friend. I hasten to add that if he was still alive, no doubt we would still be friends.

What was I to do? Should I alert the military, and have the vicious woman arrested for a crime committed so many light years away, and have her thrown in the back of a dark cell on an icy moon of Jupiter? I was certainly tempted. She just sat, so casually, as though it was no great deed she had committed, and that it was even par for the course. I was not happy.

As my chowder finally arrived, filled with steaming tentacles and something that I would venture to call a vegetable floating near the surface, I decided on my course of action. I was going to order her a glass of champagne, and have it delivered to her table. This would serve two important functions; firstly, she would imagine she had a secret admirer, and spend valuable time contemplating who in fact had sent it, something that would drive her crazy. And secondly, and this was my stroke of genius, she would not be able to drink it, as her proboscis would be in the way of the tall glass. Yes, it would be a total victory on my count.

I called over the waiter, who obliged in sending over the champagne. She thanked him, and blushed. She looked around the room. This was something that I should have foreseen, but I did not. She picked up the glass and made her way over to my table.
“Derek, fancy seeing you here. How long has it been, three years? Doesn’t time just fly!” She sounded so charming, which really is the nature of her species.
“Amanda, hi, killed any spouses recently? You know, it has been three years, you could get through a few by now.” I smiled, and tried to look impressive eating my soup, but a tentacle was hanging from the edge of my mouth. She reached over and removed the tentacle, flicking it expertly across the room. The severed amphibian limb landed on the head of a female Android. The Android fumed, quite literally, at having seafood lodged in her well crafted ‘hair’.

“Derek, you were always so blunt. That’s what I liked about you. It is a great shame that you are so unattractive, or you could have been my husband.” She reached over with one of her long arms, feeling the fleshy part of my thigh. “You do have a few pleasing qualities though.” She licked her proboscis, and made a creepy clicking noise.

I glanced over her enormous shoulders, to see the Android still fuming, and had started to spark. Strangely no one had noticed. But then again, it was Valentines Day, and people were either rushed off their feet, or wrapped in someone else. Even Amanda had failed to notice what had now become large blue flames. It was then that I seized the moment.

“Amanda, would you like a straw for your champagne? I was just going to check out the dessert cart, and I would be happy to grab one for you on the way.”
“You always were such a delight. Such a waste that your species taste so dreadful.”

I stood up, and walked quickly out of the building. As I closed the door behind me, I turned and looked through the large windows. The Android flames had reached the ceiling, then ‘BOOM’ caught some of the gas being released from my chowder, and the restaurant was gone. Amanda too was blown to tiny smithereens, I watched as her long, green legs were fired in six different directions.

I was a little sad. It had been a decent restaurant in its time, and the food was edible. I was even sad over Amanda. She may have killed my best friend, then devoured and eaten him and his children, but she was a giant praying mantis, so what did I expect.

I hailed a taxi, bound for the spaceport, and my next adventure.

Sitting alone in the corner cubicle, she overheard the faint hum of a vacuum cleaner, yet another device sucking her life away.  Watching, willing the clouds to move, she became at one with the sky, dark, sullen and restless.

Bing bing bong.  The sound of another email launching into her inbox woke her from her dream.  She saw red flags, the only splash of colour in the dankness of so-called daylight.  Disgust rose like bile from her innards, she forced herself back in control.

Down the hall came murmurs of co-workers rustling wet umbrellas, talking mindlessly about the weather.  Faced with another day of dying slowly behind the screen, being hidden from view by selfish desires, and longing to be anywhere but here, she stood.

Walking towards the elevators, Elise felt nervous, yet elated.
“Elise… have you…” a co-worker addressed her as she sped towards the doors.
“No, Kevin.  I haven’t,” in her head she added a quick, ‘screw you.’

As the doors closed on the elevator, she smiled.  Beyond all of this was something.  She didn’t know what it was, and she was quite happy about it.  Riding downwards towards the ground floor, she closed her eyes, and hoped for a more colourful tomorrow.

Several of his classmates didn’t recognise him at graduation.  One girl who he had sat behind in French for 4 years said farewell to him, calling him Andrew.  His Art teacher shook his hand in congratulations, but otherwise the day flew by just as he liked it, without a ripple or a stir.

At university he took standard papers, making sure he was in large classes with big lecture halls, when again, he sat at the back.  Third chair from the exit.  He never asked questions, preferring to consult the internet.  Carrying his backpack, he always ate in the study bay of the library, back to the window, sheltered from the world by a wooden divide.

In his last semester, sitting in the back row, Sandi sat down in the second seat from the exit.  Blushing, Adrian wanted nothing more than to move.  Afraid that sliding closer to the wall would draw attention during the lecture, he suffered in silence, forcing his body to remain still and calm.

Sandi was everything Adrian was not.  She was loud, even chewing her gum with a smack, tapping her pen on the desk, clicking her tongue when she thought.  She ate an apple during each lecture, licking her fingers when she was done.   Dressed in bright colours, with a large, loud, laugh, she would ask questions before raising her hand.

But, Adrian coped.  He learned her patten, and carried a small plastic bag for removing the apple core she always left behind.

Then Sandi went and got a tattoo.  Ordinarily this would not have bothered Adrian, but this day it became his issue.  The tattoo was a large swallow on her left arm, and of course, she was a lefty.  She turned, 5 minutes into the lecture and asked,
“Dude, can you give me your notes?  Sweet!” without waiting for a reply.  Adrian blushed and nodded, but this was a giveaway.
“Excuse me, do you have something to add to the discussion or do you merely think you know more than me…… Mr….. Smith…”  The professor was looking over his horn rimmed glasses.  The rest of the lecture hall turned around, looking straight at Adrian.  The attention was more than he could bear.  With all his might, he willed the earth to open and swallow him alive.  He was never that lucky however.
“Sorry mate.  Got this mean tat, aye.  Can’t write.  Aidsy here is gonna give me a copy,” Sandi threw her arm around Adrians shoulder, he tried to pull away, but she was too strong, even with a wounded arm.
“Well we should thank you for your kindness, but this is my lecture, and I will guarantee that this will all appear on your final.”  There was an audible groan as the class turned back to the professor waiting at the front.  Sandi released him from her clutches.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” she smiled.  He looked at her, and for the first time he saw something other than the boldness.  He saw something he knew well, he saw that she was shy, but hiding in her own way.
“No worries.  I would take the notes anyway.”  He blushed again, and carried on listening to the professor.  Sandi took out her headphones, plugged them in and started bopping to the beat.  Adrian stopped notetaking and really looked at her.  Her eyes were fixed on the professor and her iPod was clearly not playing anything.  Everything else slid out of view as he watched her breathing, listening and making it look like she was carefree.

Returning to his notes, Adrian’s eyes passed by her handbag.  It was open just a tad, and he found himself distracted.  Dropping his pen, he reached down to get it, sneaking a peak in the bag itself.  Sitting just inside was a small box with “The Diabetes Foundation” emblazoned on it.  He smiled.  The girl was a diabetic, eating the apples to keep her blood sugar levels on track.  He felt a connection forming between the third and second seats from the door.

When the professor finished his diatribe, turning off his projector, collecting his notes and disregarding the questions of his students, Adrian found himself packing up slowly.  Sandi turned to him as the class dispersed.
“Do you wanna go out for a coffee and go over the notes?” Sandi looked serious.  Adrian stared at her, and before he realised he had responded.
“Yes, actually.  I would.”  The sound of his voice caught him off guard.  He had not expected to sound so loud, then it dawned on him that this was the first real conversation he had been involved in for years.  He picked up her apple core, and put it into a little bag, and walked towards the door.  Stopping just outside, he asked,
“Can I carry that bag for you?” She stopped, staring.
“What?” she was a little confused, then she smiled.  “Yes, I would appreciate that.  Thanks.”

They walked on down the hall, and across the quad.
“Do you pick up my apple cores every day?” she asked, stopping outside the cafeteria, planting herself on a bench.
“Ah, yeah…”
“Oh,” she paused.  “Why?”
“I just didn’t want anyone to think it was me.  Or the janitor to tell me off.”
“Why?”  She was looking right into his eyes.
“I just don’t like it,” he stopped, dropping his voice to a whisper, “I don’t like being on display I guess.”
“Well, thanks.  I don’t normally think about things like that.”
“No, you are too busy listening to the music in your head, right?” Adrian smiled, and looked away.
“You’ve noticed?” She blushed, “I’m so embarrassed.”
“Don’t be.”
“No, its weird.”
“Not as weird as you would think.  But, why do you pretend you don’t care?”
“Probably because caring hurts.  This way no one worries if I fail or if I don’t show to a final.  They think I’m a flake…. not….” she stopped.
“Not sick, right.” Adrian stared straight into her eyes.
“Yeah.  That.  I don’t want people to pity me.”  Adrian looked at her, and smiled.
“I don’t pity you.  I like you,” then he smiled.  “You owe me a coffee.”

They stood up, and walked inside.  Adrian smiled to himself, feeling proud of himself for making a friend.

I’ve never told anyone but I’ve always wanted to go sky diving.  I haven’t because it seems so dangerous, but I want to do it.  One day I will go.  The feeling of plummeting back to earth is what I want.  A feeling of being actually grounded after the fall.  I am afraid that I will chicken out and stay in the plane, but I want to do it anyway.

I’ve never told anyone but I was so afraid of the water.  It always felt so cumbersome around me, like I had to fight to move.  I was so jealous of those girls who could walk around confident in their bikini’s, diving in like dolphins, emerging elegant and beautiful.  Learning to swim was so hard, but looking back it was one of the things I am most proud of.

I’ve never told anyone but when you taught me how to fence I fell for you, just a little.  Missing class, running out the back gate, just to find those bamboo stakes and learn to fence.  You showed me more of yourself that day, a lightness that I liked to be around.

I’ve never told anyone but that day on the beach was the best day of my life.  Walking along the rocks, trying not to topple in, then watching you fall amongst the limpets, laughing as the sun set below the horizon.  Looking back it is hard to believe it was a lifetime ago, I still remember how you smell.

I’ve never told anyone but that day in November was terrifying.  I tried so hard to look like I was in control, but I was shaking on the inside.  All I wanted to do was curl up behind the sofa in a ball and wish myself away.  I didn’t want the attention, and I didn’t want to be there.  Thinking of it still makes me nauseous.

I’ve never told anyone, but when we crashed that car, it killed my baby.  I didn’t really know I was pregnant, but I had suspected.  After the crash I had X-rays and tests.  A doctor came in and told me I had lost the baby.  I knew really.  I knew when the X-ray technician asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant, I knew, but I didn’t say because I didn’t want you to know.  I didn’t want to make you stay.  I wanted you to stay without that.

I’ve never told anyone, but each day that I’m away from you, I slip further from the truth.  When I close my eyes, I see you there.  But you fade from my memory like our baby that you never knew.  I want so much for the two of you to meet, wherever you are.  I cry when I think that both your souls are wandering around searching for something, not knowing that you are looking for each other.

I’ve never told anyone, but now, looking back, I wish I had just told you.

Lovingly he crafted each piece to order for the high paying clients.  Each piece a tiny artwork, destined to caress the palate before fading away leaving only a hint of sadness on the tongue.  They all came back for more, wishing to find the one taste that would satiate the soul forever.

But none ever would.  What they didn’t know is that each piece was designed, crafted and created for another.  He watched her each morning, walking down the narrow cobbled path.  Her clunky shoes slipped on the damn stones, causing her to stumble ever so slightly.  Watching her he could see the shoes were a little too large, her simple dress a little too faded, and her hands were a little too cold to be comfortable walking to work.

He crafted exquisite chocolates all day, watching through the window for the time he would see her walking home.  He would rush around, clearing and packing, aiming to nonchalantly walk behind her, occasionally saying hello, or offering a hand.  Each night he would watch the way she moved, smell her scent in the still night air, and crave to touch her tiny hands.  But each night he would hold back, never touching, never declaring what was true in his heart, never letting her know.

Each chocolate was his search for the perfect description of her.  He longed to create a single morsel that would be all she meant to him.  That day he would walk home with her, offering the chocolate that she could never resist.  Then she would know, with one taste she would know how much she meant to him, she would realise how well he knew her.

Until that chocolate was born, he would wait.  Wait, watch and wonder.  Tempering the chocolate was the key.  He would never rush chocolate or his love.

For as long as anyone could remember, the oak tree at the end of the lane sported a long ribbon, tied in a bow, near the top of the highest branch.  Kids in the neighbourhood always dared each other to climb up and remove it.  Some ventured up the tree, some denied the challenge, and some like Billy Williams failed abysmally in the process.

Billy tried climbing up the tree, cheered on by the chanting of his friends below, last summer.  He climbed like a monkey, never daring to look down.  He was almost there, when he reached out just a little too far and dropped like a stone.  Well, less like a stone and more like something that bounced from branch to branch before landing breathlessly on the ground.  He broke both arms that day.

Nessa McDonald also tried later in the spring.  There were new branches and little leaves just peaking out from the old wood.  As she climbed blossoms rained down on her friends below.  She only made it half way up the tree.  She started sneezing, so climbed back down.  Her friends all decided that it was a stupid tree anyway, and no one should have hayfever.

Liam Roberts had the best story of all.  He always claimed that his father climbed the tree and right up by the ribbon, he carved a heart in the wood with his mothers initials.  Now, Mr Roberts is a nice guy, and a great maths teacher, but he is a fatty.  No one ever really believed that he made the climb, let alone with romance in mind, but he did.  The heart is still there, but you have to look carefully because of all the lichens.

Last week Phoebe Smythe came down to the tree with her guitar.  She sat and sang under the branches, amongst the fallen leaves.  She claimed the tree was her earth mother.  Some laughed at her behind her back, but she was a talented musician.  She made a bit of money busking that day, bought a train ticket, and headed out of town to make a go of it in the city.

The workmen were gathered around the base of the tree that afternoon when the neighbourhood kids came out of school.  They ran to the sound of the chainsaws and ropes.  Before they even approached the park, the tree was falling, in slow motion.  Branches cracked and groaned under their transferred weight, littering the air with leaves and debris.  Molly Winkler even screamed at the sound, but she had always been a scaredy cat.

When Cindy Rothery walked up to the top branch, she wanted to take the yellow ribbon.  But it was gone.  Looking up into the sky she could see it dancing in the wind, carried off to a new destination.  Satisfied with seeing it pass, she left the tree and headed on home to see her Grandmother.

Others still wonder about the yellow ribbon.  Stories spread around the town often saying that the ribbon was removed so the tree had to go also.  Other rumours suggest that there never was a ribbon at all.  At least one person overheard Patty Mulligan in the cafe saying she had seen a UFO that night and was convinced that aliens stole the ribbon because of its psychic energy.  Only Cindy knew the truth, and she was never going to say.  Sometimes a mystery is better than the truth.

……………………………………………………

Throwing my cap in the air, I felt an unexpected surge of reckless abandon.  The laughter, hugs, smiles, and I’ve never forget you’s hung around me.  Brad pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around my waist, planting a kiss directly on my lips.  In the spirit of the moment, I reciprocated, sharing an embrace that was just a little too knowing, too impassioned, and too long to be ignored.  I held his face, leaning up to whisper, ‘congratulations’ in his ear.  He responded with a series of kisses on my neck that made me giggle breathlessly.
“Ahem.”
I turned to see my father standing there, holding a massive bouquet of flowers, with a smile fading from his face.
“Dad,” I dropped Brad like a sack of potatoes, “I didn’t see you there.”
“Well.  We should be off,” there was no emotion in his voice, “I’m sure there are more rejection letters to open when we get home.”    I nodded, realizing that he had read a little more into the moment than there really was.  No longer his little girl, he saw the countless thousands he had spent on my education as nothing more than an investment in my apparent debauchery.

……………………………………………………

Holding her in my arms felt so foreign.  The lightness of her body took me by surprise after the burden I’d bore over the last few months.  Her face was his, his lips, his nose, his ears, his chin.  What had I been thinking?  All this time waiting to meet, expecting so much more, finding nothing more than a shell of a man long gone.

I wanted to cry, but not for the usual reasons new mothers do.  Then she opened her eyes, staring back at me.  The first glimpse was mine, her eyes had my exact hue, deep blue.  Looking closer I saw the pale pattern near the pupil identical to mine in every way.  Like mine, her eyebrows were dark and thick.  Her eyelashes were pale, short and still a little mucky from the birth, exactly like mine.   I laughed,
“There you are sweetheart, I see you too.”

“You are visionary today, make the most of this by carefully thinking through your major decisions.  Someone will attempt to reach you on a meaningful level, be open to their words, do not rush your response.  Someone special will make you smile.  Your lucky number today is 8.”

I put down the paper, never believing the words in front of me.  How could a horoscope predetermine your life, let alone mine? And yet, somehow, my life is more determined by those words than others.  That horoscope had shaped by adult life, helped pay my rent, assisted my travel, and made my day.

I am the writer of the horoscope.

More than anyone else, I know this is fake.  I lied to get the job.  Alright, it was a tough market when I graduated.  No one was taking recent graduates as reporters or journalists.  I faced a horrid truth, a real truth, or as I would have written, “a crucial decision will shape your life, think carefully about what is offered to you today.”  Not that anyone offered.

I just returned home.  I grew up on a small farm where Dad raised heritage pigs, and Mother made preserves and table runners, selling her goods at local markets.  My days were filled with pickling spices, country air, fields of wheat, sunkissed shoulders and nothing but time and space.  At college I discovered the coldness of the city, the dankness of the night, and the way everyone rushed around as though they were living out the last few days of their death sentence.

Home was difficult after returning from the city.  Dad expected me to walk into a national paper straight away, and when I didn’t he assumed it was because I had spent 4 years becoming depraved, sullying my good name and besperching my reputation.  Mother simply relished the idea of me at home, now I could be married off to her country club sect.  She had become the secretary of the Women’s Association in my absence, and now I was back, she put me to work.

“This is the newsletter.  We share ideas and recipes, don’t forget to run them past Maryellen because last winter we ran a story on plum jam, which she noted was incorrect as the setting agents didn’t have time to work.  This page is from the president, always include a picture of her in the garden.  She likes it to be seasonal.  And the back page is always a bit of fun.  We have a crossword, see Mr. Preece the butcher as he likes to contribute a few questions each month, and a horoscope.  You’ll have to write that, and a few inspirational or humourous quotes.  Nothing from politicians, you know how that divides the members.  Any questions?  Good.  I have to arrange the flowers for the benefit gala.”

She had been a flurry of words, a hive of activity, then absent, leaving me with the South Western Women’s Association Newsletter.  So I compiled the newsletter for 2 years, all the time wanting to get out of the house, and away from Taylor Preston, whom Mother had tirelessly worked to marry me to.

It only took one edition before Susie, a young mother with wealthy connections, came running up to me to tell me that I was right.  I still have no idea what I was right about, but I smiled and told her it was all part of the ‘greater destiny’ and it was ‘written in the stars’.  Over the next few months, many more women spoke, asking for personal guidance, of which I denied, saying it was ‘ethically a grey area’ to advise a reader privately.  That’s when I enrolled in the Community College, picking up papers in both Astronomy and Astrology.  Mainly as I still didn’t know which was which.  I bought a set of tarot cards that I worked on my one handed shuffling technique with, carried at the bottom of my hand bag, spilt tea on and read a dummies guide to tarot reading, incase I was put on the spot.  I started wearing long flowing maxi dresses and sandals, and grew my hair out.

The latter definitely concerned Mother, though Dad found it hillarious.  I spent my spare time wandering the farm in gumboots, mucking out the pigs and reconnecting with him.  One morning in the stalls he fell over, clutching his left arm.  He had a massive heart attack, which I really should have foresaw, afterall, I had predicted, “take medical concerns seriously, ask for a second opinion,” and “someone you love will embark on a new journey.”  After the funeral I was afraid that Mother’s plans had taken over my life when Taylor Preston, Esquire, asked if I would do him the honour of becoming his wife.  That wasn’t in my horoscope, so I fled.

This time the city seemed less harsh, more forgiving.  I found an apartment with a rooftop garden, intermittant shortages of hot water, and a fabulous policy on pet ownership.  I had applied for a job as a journalist with everything from the Wall Street Journal to Gardeners Home Digest, with no success.  Sadly I found my services as a horoscope writer to be in demand.  Heading up to the massive office on the top floor, wearing the flowingest garb and jewelery covered in stars, I received strange looks and knowing glances.

“We would like to offer you a position here, if you would like to work with us.  Daily horoscopes and a weekly advice column.  What do you think?”  What did I think?  Honestly I couldn’t believe I was being offered the chance to name my price for something that took very little effort on my part.  The biggest challenge would be finding a hippy supply store.

So I took the job, writing fortunes and sharing dreams.  The praise pours in, I have devoted followers.  I earn more than the top journalist in the paper now, because my contract allows for me to supply advice from the stars to others, including a website, a fung shui interior design company, and I lecture at a private college just out of the city limits.

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to accept the proposal, what it would be like to be Mrs. Taylor Preston, Esquire, and whether I would cheer on Taylor III at his little league games.  It would just be another fake lifestyle, one where others would marvel at how lucky I had it, how beautiful the house/children/dinner setting is, holidaying in the Hamptons.

The irony is how I have written a novel.  It has been published, under a pseudonym.

One day I will wake up, and write my last horoscope.  I will not foretell or predict anything about my future.  I’ll walk out the door, and hop on a plane.  When I land, I can finally be just me.  It doesn’t matter where I go, because I have to find myself.  The only place I can possibly be is somewhere else, somewhere where the truth is not found in families, on pages or in the stars.  All I really know is that the place probably has a pig or two.